Secrets
by moonlightxwitch
Summary: Zak Saturday has just found out that he is the force of ultimate evil, Kur. Now the Saturdays have to figure this all out. But with Argost, Van Rook and the Naga on their tail, keeping this a secret might be more difficult than they thought. DISCONTINUED.
1. The Dream

DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Secret Saturdays.

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So finding out that I was the ancient evil Kur and I pretty much have the power to destroy the world wasn't exactly the _best _moment of my life.

I mean, sure I knew my powers were kind of weird. My parents always told me it was because _somebody_ needed to be able to stop Kur, and since they're pretty much geniuses, I believed them. Now it turns out I _am _Kur. How's that for an interesting little twist.

It's been three days since we fought off Argost and that huge cryptid in Antarctica. Or maybe it's been longer. I haven't really been paying that much attention. We spent hours in the Arctic trying to figure it out. Doyle had me walk as far away as I could with them still able to see me. The relic's glow would dim, but then when I walked back it would glow like a light bulb. Mom and Dad walked back to the airship with me, while Doyle stayed with the gigantic cryptid (we're really not sure what to call it anymore), and when he followed us back a few minutes later, he said the relic had stopped glowing completely when I left.

Anyways, these past days have been filled with either yelling or silence. Nobody's said a word to me about it since that day, but I know they're talking about me when I'm not listening. I don't blame them. Even after they sent me to bed that night, I could hear all of them shouting about it through the walls of the ship (our house is being rebuilt so we've been staying in the airship the past couple of days). I wanted to yell at them to be quiet but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just tried to tune them out but I couldn't get much sleep, no matter how hard I tried. I just laid awake for most of the night. When I did fall asleep, I had nightmares. So, finally, on the third night (or longer), I didn't even try to sleep. My parents and Uncle Doyle were talking/yelling again and I wanted to hear what they thought about all this when they weren't worrying about my feelings or trying to protect me from the truth.

"You shouldn't have fixed that relic, Doyle!" Mom was shouting. "I told you that it was full of black magic. You should have just left it alone!"

"It isn't my fault!" Doyle shouted back. "I fixed it because I thought that even if Fiskerton led us in the right direction, we might need more proof to where Kur was. And I was right, wasn't I? Would you rather not know about this at all?"

There was a pause. It was too long.

Finally, Dad broke the silence. "The point is that we know now. Nothing is going to change that. So what are we going to do about it?"

"Do we even really know for sure that he is Kur?" Mom asked quietly.

I heard Doyle groan. "Drew, we've been over this already. The relic-"

"Yes, the relic glowed! We don't know how it works. Maybe it just keyed into his cryptid powers; maybe he isn't Kur at all!" Mom said desperately. I could tell she didn't believe it.

There was another pause as they all thought it over. I crawled out of bed and cracked open my door. Dad was pacing back and forth. Doyle was sitting on the couch directly across from my bedroom door, Fisk right next to him. I hadn't even realized Fisk was there, and it didn't really seem fair that he could be part of the big adult conversation about me. I couldn't see Mom but everyone else looked really tired.

"No," Doyle shook his head. "When we were in Weird World, that snake lady said that the relic only glowed in the presence of Kur. Because it was…what was it? 'The relic is derived from Kur's essence' or something like that?" Doyle looked at Fisk, who thought for a second then nodded.

Mom wouldn't give up. "Fiskerton pointed to Antarctica when we asked him where we would find Kur. Why wouldn't he have just pointed to Zak? I mean, he's the Kur guardian, wouldn't he have noticed if Kur was with him the entire time?"

Fisk opened his mouth, probably to protest that this wasn't his fault, but Dad cut him off.

"I've been thinking about that and I think I might've gotten it figured out. Fiskerton pointed to where Kur would be revealed, not to where Kur itself was. And we found out about…this…in Antarctica." Dad had said that last sentence shakily.

"That seems a little off, if you ask me," Mom said harshly. She was sounding angrier by the second.

"I know, but I can't think of any other reason why we would have had to go to Antarctica," Dad muttered. I leaned in closer and hoped nobody would look at my door. I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be listening to this conversation. Everyone went quiet for a while.

Now to some people, this might've sounded pretty cool. I mean, having enough power to destroy the world? That's…big. Huge. But I don't want it. Any of it. Yeah, having cryptid powers was kind of cool and all, since I was around cryptids so much. Being the only person who could stop Argost from getting Kur and destroying the world was big, but I could handle it. Barely, but I could handle it. But actually being Kur? No. I've heard all about it from my parents and the secret scientists: Kur is evil. Turn-the-world-into-a-pile-of-dust evil. I'm not evil. At least, I don't want to be.

Mom's voice brought my head back into focus and I realized she was talking about what I was thinking about.

"Zak is _not_ evil. Sure, he gets into trouble, but what eleven-year-old doesn't? He's good and he'd never, ever do anything evil on purpose! This isn't just some cryptid, Doc! This is our _son!_ This is Zak!" Mom's voice cracked when she said my name.

Another pause.

"Everything we've heard or read about Kur says that it is an evil force. Zak isn't evil, but maybe if this power influences him-"

I kicked the door shut. Loudly. Dad stopped talking. Oh…crud.

I ran as quickly and quietly as I could and jumped back into bed. I was just pulling the covers up to my chin when I stopped. It's not like they didn't know now that I was listening. I tried to slow down my breathing. My heart was doing jumping jacks in my chest. Man, was I in for it. Eavesdropping? Big no-no in my house. Well not that there was usually that much to eavesdrop on. My family didn't have secrets. Well we did. Just not from each other.

I sighed. Either I was going out there or they were coming in here. I opened the door and stepped out. I blinked a couple times as my eyes adjusted to the light.

I walked up to my family. Here we go. I hadn't noticed it before, but the Kur relic was sitting on the tale in front of the couch. As I walked closer to it, the glow got brighter and brighter. I stopped and took a step back. I didn't want my eyes glowing too.

I could see Mom now, leaning up against the wall. She, Doyle and Fisk wouldn't look at me. They probably thought my eyes were going to start glowing or something. Dad, on the other hand was looking straight at me. I didn't know if I felt better about that or if I'd rather none of them look at me at all.

"Did we wake you up?" Dad asked suddenly. His voice was soft, careful.

"No. I couldn't sleep anyway," I muttered, shuffling my feet.

"We probably shouldn't have been yelling," Mom said quietly, still not looking at me.

"Yeah, probably not," I said. I was staring at the relic, watching it glow in my presence. It was oddly hypnotizing. It would work good as a nightlight. _Not _that I would ever need one.

"Zak," Mom started. I looked up to see her finally looking at me. I could tell a lot of things from her expression; she was confused, maybe a little angry and most of all, worried. "We need to talk about this. We need to…figure this out. Find out what this means."

That was probably another way of saying 'Find out if you're going to destroy the world.' Or maybe I was just being bitter. I knew I needed to calm down a bit. This wasn't their fault. Then again, my parents _were_ the ones who dug up the Kur Stone in the first place and started this whole thing. _They _had been the ones who'd made it absolutely clear to me that Kur had to be , no it wasn't their fault. It was nobody's fault.

I took a deep breath and leaned up against the wall. "Okay. So we know I'm….Kur." It was still kind of hard for me to admit. "But nobody else does."

"Right," Dad nodded. "The other Secret Scientists know we were going to find Kur and they know about Fiskerton being a Lemurian. A couple days ago, I told them most of the truth. That we had found Kur in Antarctica, but we managed to stop Argost from getting hold of it."

"What about that big cryptid we found in the Arctic? We could just tell them that that was Kur. We believed it," Doyle suggested.

"Maybe," Mom said. "But if they do any tests and find out we were lying, they're bound to get suspicious."

"Then what are we supposed to tell them? That the Antarctic Godzilla we found was just another cryptid?" Doyle said doubtfully.

"Well it was, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but then we're going to have to pretend we're still looking for Kur. And that would be pretty pointless seeing as—"

"I really don't care if the other scientists find out," I said suddenly. Mom, Dad and Doyle looked at me. Only Fisk kept his head down. "I mean, they would probably find out anyway. I'd prefer it if they didn't, but you guys work with them. We can't keep it a big secret from them forever. I'm more worried about…." I didn't finish. I didn't have to.

"Argost is not going to find out. We won't let him." Dad sounded so confident I could almost believe him. But I didn't. I still had bruises all over my body from fighting him. I wasn't anxious to see him again anytime soon.

"But what if he does? What then? He could put one of those neural parasite-y thingies on me and it wouldn't matter if I was evil or not he could control me and make me hurt people or cryptids or you and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it—"

"Zak!" Mom interrupted my rambling. Suddenly she had her arms around me. Normally it would've made me feel awkward or childish, but right now, it just made me feel safe. "He is not going to lay a hand on you. I won't let him."

"_We_ won't let him." Doyle stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. "You already beat him once, mini-man. When we see him again, we can take him down easy."

"There's nothing to worry about, Zak," Dad said. "We'll find out all we can about what this means, but whatever happens, you're still a Saturday."

Getting that all off my chest made me sleep a lot better that night. Well by that I mean, I actually got to sleep. The sleep itself wasn't exactly great. I had a pretty nasty nightmare. But it started out like most of the other dreams I had been having the past couple of days.

I was back in Antarctica. It was bitterly cold and my snowsuit was torn up, but I barely noticed that. I was facing "Kur", or what we originally thought was Kur. I looked all around me, but my family was nowhere in sight. I reached for the claw, but I didn't have it. So, I really only had one other choice. I turned and tried to run, but I couldn't move at all. I tried to scream but no noise came out and it wouldn't have mattered anyway. There was nobody around to hear me. Before I could even think, one of the snakelike heads swooped down and swallowed me whole.

Everything was dark and it smelled like a mix of garlic, sulfur, and milk left out too long. But it was the inside of a monster, what was it supposed to smell like? I didn't know why, but I started moving through the beast. Only later would I remember it was the same path I took with Fisk a few days ago. Which would have meant that waiting for me at the end of that path was—

Suddenly, the image changed. I wasn't inside the giant cryptid, but in Weird World. Months ago, this would've been cool. I mean, Weird World used to be my favorite show. Now of course, it was my archenemy's mansion and that was it. Not to mention I wasn't in exactly the best situation. I was in a room similar to the one Fisk had been held in. The dungeon. My wrists and ankles were bound to the wall with chains. Even though I had been perfectly fine a second ago, aside from my torn snowsuit, I was suddenly bruised, battered and exhausted.

I thought I was alone but then Argost and Munya, in his spider-like form, came in to the chamber. After we fought him in the Arctic, Argost had looked terrible, like he was ready to drop dead on the spot. Now, he looked perfectly fine. There was no way he could heal that fast. His mask wasn't even cracked anymore, though I guess he must've had more than one. The look in his eyes scared me. It wasn't anger or hatred, like I might've expected. It was triumph.

"Little Saturday," Argost said, opening his arms in greeting. His smile made me shiver. "I hope that you are comfortable."

I didn't say anything. Not that there was anything for me to say. How had I gotten here? Why was I so weak? Why was Argost so happy? Argost being happy was never a good thing.

"This is your second time here, is it not?" Argost said, motioning around him. "I'll think you'll find that Weird World is much more….accommodating when you're not breaking in."

"My family's coming," I said suddenly. "They'll save me and then we'll stop you, like we always do. You're just a stupid, pathetic old T.V. star." Then I spat at his feet.

Immediately after I did it, I regretted it. What was I thinking? This guy had almost killed me just a few days ago. He was a complete psycho too. Who knew what he could do to me? Munya growled at me and took a step forward, but Argost put a hand out, restraining him.

"Now, now. The boy is just upset. It is only natural, after all. There is no need for violence." The man stepped up to me until we were almost nose to nose. "Not yet." I glared at him.

"You know, boy, after what happened in Antarctica, all I wanted to do was kill you with my bare hands. You, a mere child, had taken my destiny away from me. Everything I worked for. That power—"

For a second, Argost's eyes were full of fury and hatred. I gulped and for the first time I was scared. I knew he could do it and he would do it. He could kill me, right here, right now. I was chained up. I wouldn't even be able to fight back.

"I should've figured it out earlier. Your power, your control over cryptids. So….unique. I passed it off as coincidence. Something I would have to take care of later. Surely, it couldn't be anything more than that." He was looking right at me now, the triumph back in his eyes. "I would've never guessed that the youngest Saturday was so important to my destiny."

No.

"That in the middle of the goody-two shoes family was the force of ultimate evil."

No!

"You are Kur."

I shot up in bed in a cold sweat. My heart and mind were both racing. I took several deep breaths as I tried to calm down. A nightmare. It was only a nightmare. It had seemed so real. I should have figured it out when it switched from the giant cryptid to Weird World. The details were already slipping out of my memory, like water through somebody's hands. I tried to hold on to as much of it as I could.

I had been chained up in Weird World. I had felt like I'd just gotten through a fight. I still had some bruises from Antarctica, but in the dream, I was aching all over and felt ready to pass out. And then there was Argost. He had looked perfectly fine. If I still had bruises, he must've had even more. He'd taken a lot more heat than I had (which I gladly took the credit for). Argost _had_ to still be recovering.

And he couldn't know yet. There was absolutely no way he could know that I was Kur. The only people who knew were the rest of my family and I knew none of them would ever tell anyone. Especially not Argost.

Unless…...What if he had something we didn't know about? Something like the relic or something else, that could prove that I was Kur? What if he'd found something? Or what if he'd figured it out by himself? He wasn't _that_ stupid, after all. And he had plenty of resources. Probably more than us. Man, if he finds out—

Out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn that I had seen someone, or something, move. I was suddenly wide-awake. I sat there, motionless. It was too dark to see anything clearly. After about a few seconds, I calmed down again. I was just a little jumpy. Of course I was, after everything that had happened recently, not to mention that dream. Still, I could've sworn that there had been something there.

Then there was a muffled thump, like something hitting the wall, followed by a muttered swear word. Definitely human. My senses suddenly alert, I jumped out of bed. I made a grab for the claw, but suddenly I was being pinned to the ground. Whoever it was, it definitely wasn't a Saturday and I was definitely in trouble.


	2. Caught Off Guard

Thanks for the reviews! Sorry it took awhile for me to get this chapter up but I had to change it around a lot because I never felt like I really got it right. I still don't but it's better than it was before.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Secret Saturdays, though it would be really cool if I did. :)

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I really wasn't in the mood to be pinned to the floor of my room. The person, I wasn't really sure if it was a man or woman, had both of their hands on my arms. Usually, I might've been able to escape but it was the middle of the night, I couldn't see anything and this person, whoever they were, was pretty strong.

"Who are you?" I asked. No answer. Okay, not the chatty type. Suddenly, I was pulled up and pushed against the wall, my arms pinned behind me. Not the best position. Even in the dark, I had a pretty good idea of where I was though. I wasn't completely sure, but I thought that the alarm button was on the same wall I was currently pinned against. Or maybe it was the light switch. Either one would be of help to me though.

Before I could come up with a plan, the intruder spoke in a definitely feminine voice. "Zak, we need to talk."

Wait a second. I knew that voice, but it was the last person I would've expected in here. On second thought, I should have expected it. When she spoke, she loosened her grip on me a little bit. I jerked to the left and she let go of me. Before she could figure out what I was doing, I ran my hand against the wall and found a switch. I flipped it up.

The room was suddenly illuminated with light. I wasn't surprised to see that it was Abbey in my room. She quickly threw off the night vision goggles she'd been wearing and blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of her sudden blindness. I smirked. It served her right.

"What are you doing here, Abbey?" I asked before her vision came back.

"We need to talk," she repeated, blinking away tears.

I really wasn't in the mood to talk to Abbey. Even though she used to be a friend of the family, I was pretty sure nobody would be glad to see her. After Doyle came to stay with us, she'd replaced him as Van Rook's apprentice. She'd tried to have us all killed. Former babysitter or not, Mom, Dad and especially Doyle would gladly to take her in a fight.

Finally able to see again, she looked right at me and I went a little weak at the knees. I realized that, Abbey, my former babysitter, had just taken me down, in my pajamas, no less. And she was in my room. Not that she hadn't been in my room before, and she'd definitely seen me in my pajamas before, but that had been when I was a lot younger. I could feel myself blushing. God, I hate puberty. She is an enemy, I thought desperately. Focus.

"Wh-what would you need to talk to me about? And couldn't it wait till m-morning?" Why was I stammering? It was just Abbey. Backstabbing, evil, rotten Abbey. Who was in my room in the middle of the night. Oh my god.

"I'm sorry for waking you up, Zak, but I need to talk to you. Just you," Abbey said.

All at once I felt confused, smug and guilty. Confused because I had no idea why Abbey would want to talk to me. Smug because she came to talk to me and not someone else (like, um, Doyle). And then I felt guilty for feeling smug about it, especially after my family had just proven how supportive they were going to be about this whole "Kur" thing.

"Why just me?" I asked, glad that my voice sounded stable.

Abbey opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, so that she reminded me of a fish. I was surprised to see that now she looked a little bit guilty. Suddenly I was nervous. Abbey, who was working for one of our biggest enemies, wouldn't show up in the middle of the night just to talk. Either this was a trap or there was something serious going on. Either way, I didn't think I could trust her.

I looked at the wall and found the button that turned on the airship's alarm. Quickly, I slid my hand over the wall so that it hovered directly above it.

"One wrong move and I hit this button. Then everyone will be in here before you can say 'evil, backstabbing babysitter'," I said trying to sound more threatening and less nervous. Abbey rolled her eyes.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you," Abbey said. She smoothed back the covers on my bed and sat down. "I didn't bring any weapons or anything."

"What happened to finishing that job and um, well…." I trailed off but Abbey knew what I meant.

"I suppose I am going to have to do that one day," she said thoughtfully. "But not like—well, things have changed a little bit." Abbey looked guilty and nervous again. I moved my hand closer to the alarm. I wasn't sure I really believed that. Why would she suddenly just change her mind? "And I have to ask you something, Zak."

"What?"

"Have you, or your family I suppose, done anything to….well….upset Argost? I mean more than usual?"

I felt myself put my hand on the button but I didn't press it down. Images suddenly flashed in my brain: me fighting with Argost in Antarctica, the Kur relic glowing for me, the dream I had just had. "No," I said, not meeting her eyes.

"Zak, I was your babysitter. It isn't that hard for me to tell when you're lying."

Darn it. "What does it even matter to you? You work for Van Rook not Argost. What's your point?"

"Technically, I do a lot of work for both of them. And my point is, that he called us in yesterday," Abbey said. I looked up and saw that Abbey was biting her lip. Whatever Argost had wanted, I knew it wasn't good. I waited for her to go on, but she seemed to be lost in thought.

"….Abbey?" I said, waving my free hand in front of her face. She blinked, as if she'd just realized that I was there. "What did Argost want?"

She ignored me, which was annoying. "We knew better than to keep him waiting, so we went down there as soon as we could. And I have never seen him so angry." I could feel my blood pumping faster and faster. No matter how many times I wiped my hands on my pajamas, they still felt sweaty. I really didn't like where this was going. "He was fuming. He kept pacing and breaking all of his things. And he was all bandaged and bruised, like he'd just gotten out of a fight"

"Wait, what?" I interrupted.

"Yeah," Abbey continued. "He looked awful. Van Rook made a smart comment that he should be in bed or go to a doctor or something. He asked what did that to him and I swear I thought Argost was going to bite his head off."

My heart seemed to slow down again. My nightmare must have been just that: a nightmare. Argost had looked perfectly healthy in my dream. If he was still hurt, then there was no way it had been real.

"Anyways, he said he had a job for us. Well, he wanted us to tell all of his associates. Anybody who's worked for him or with us before."

"So what did he want?" I asked.

Abbey looked straight at me, with a weird look in her eyes. "Zak, put your hand down." This, of course, made me absolutely sure that I had to keep my hand on the button.

"Why should I?" I asked. She flinched at the way my voice had dropped. I was serious now.

"Just……please, Zak," Abbey said. I realized the look in her eyes was desperation. That's when I started to figure it out.

"You're afraid to see the rest of my family because they'd be unhappy to see you. Well, okay they would be seriously ticked if they saw you here. But there's another reason too," I said. "You're going to tell me something that would just make my parents even madder at you, right? That's why you don't want them to know you're here. You're scared."

The desperation in Abbey's eyes changed to a sudden fierceness. She stood up and walked toward me. I knew she wouldn't hurt me but I still found myself a little scared.

"Zak. Put. Your hand. Down," she said, taking another step with every word until Abbey was directly in my face. "And then….I'll tell you. Alright?"

I hesitated. I knew if I took my hand off the alarm and Mom and Dad somehow found out, they would have seriously yelled at me. It would be totally stupid but…I knew I needed to hear what Argost was up to. Slowly, I took my hand off the alarm and put it down by my side. Abbey sighed.

"What Argost told us….well I only asked if you or your family had done something to upset him, because what he told us to do…. involves you, Zak."

Argost was planning something to do with me. Now, maybe I just wanted my parents there because I was scared. Or maybe I was so upset about what Abbey had said, that I wanted to scare her. All I know is that as soon as Abbey said those words, my hand shot up to hit the alarm button. Abbey, realizing what I was going to do a second before I did it, reached out to hold my hand back but she was too late. My hand was already pressing down on the alarm. Still it was too late for her to stop her motion, and Abbey's hand pinned mine against the wall.

Suddenly, the light in my room was red and there was a siren blaring from all directions. Abbey groaned and I kind of regretted that I had hit the alarm but I knew I couldn't change anything now. Everyone would be awake. I don't even think the dead could sleep through the noise that was searing its way through my ears. Clearly, Abbey couldn't take it either. She hit the alarm and everything stopped. It was quiet again. At least for a second. Then the door shot open and Mom and Dad ran in.

It was pretty obvious they'd just woken up. Mom's hair looked like someone had rubbed a balloon against her head and the static had made her hair all weird. She was wearing a long nightgown and Dad was wearing a robe. Their eyes traveled from me to Abbey to her hand curled around my wrist. Add on the fact that Abbey looked scared and angry, and the scene really didn't look all that good for her.

Dad's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth but before he could say (or yell, more likely) anything, Mom ran forward. Before she could grab me, Abbey pulled her hand

back and took several steps away from my mother. Mom swung me around so she could see me.

"Are you alright? Did she do anything to you?" Mom asked, still spinning me around so that she could see all of me.

"Mom, I'm fine, calm down." I could feel myself blushing as I slid out of her grasp.

"I'd step back if I were you, Drew," Abbey said, her voice solemn. It sounded the same as it had when she'd ordered me to take my hand off the alarm.

"What are you doing here, Abbey?" Dad growled, stepping up next to my mother.

"You should leave. Now," Mom added, her voice unusually dark.

Abbey looked, well, irritated, to say the least. This was clearly not going how she'd planned. She hadn't expected or wanted to see my parents but I was glad that they were here. Now, she would have to say what Argost wanted with me. But still, a part of me felt guilty. Abbey had come to try and tell me something, to warn me about something and now she was probably going to have to fight her way out of here. She looked like she was drowning and wanted me to throw her a lifeline, which I definitely didn't have.

Suddenly, Doyle sprinted in, followed immediately by Fisk.

"What's going o—" he started, then stopped short when he saw Abbey.

"Oh hell," she said quietly, so only I could hear her. Huh. I never heard my babysitter swear before. Well, ex-babysitter. I felt sorry for her for a second, then remembered that she deserved it.

Fisk growled something but I didn't hear what. Later, I would remember that it was the first time I had heard from him in days, but at that moment I wasn't paying attention. I was focused on Abbey. Her eyes kept jumping around the room, like she was looking for somewhere to go. I wondered suddenly how she got into my room in the first place. There weren't any windows and I should've heard her come in through the door. Of course I'd been having a pretty big dream at the time.

"What do you think you're doing here?" Doyle said, coming up so he was standing beside his sister.

"Can't I stop into see my little Zak every now and again?" Abbey said playfully. "Granted, I probably should have stopped in a little earlier. But, it's not like you would've welcomed me with open arms, now would you?" Man, if looks could kill, Abbey would've been so dead. I'm pretty sure that everybody but me was glaring at her.

"What do you want with Zak?"

"Nothing." Abbey shrugged. "I don't want anything to do to him." Well, that stung a little but I knew she was lying anyway so I let it slide. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll just be slipping out."

"No!" I exclaimed. Everyone jumped and turned to stare at me. My face felt hot but I tried to ignore it. "There's no way you're leaving yet. You still haven't told me what this whole thing with Argost is all about and not you're going anywhere until you do."

"Argost?!" Mom, Dad, and Doyle said together.

"_What about Argost?" _Fisk asked.

Abbey was at a loss for words, so I jumped in. "Before you came in, Abbey was talking to me about Argost calling her and Van Rook in to talk about this big mission or whatever and it had something to do with me."

Doyle's mouth was hanging open. Mom and Dad's faces had changed from anger to concern. I knew Abbey was stuck now. She wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.

Clearly, she'd figured this out too. Abbey sighed. "Okay, fine. Let's talk. Do we have to do it in here though?"

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with my room!"

"If you say so."

I was holding back a smile so I turned around and passed my parents to walk out my door. "We can talk out here." When nobody replied, I turned to see that my family was still blocking off Abbey's way out. "She's not going to run away," I assured them. I might not have known her as well as I used to, but I knew Abbey wasn't going to skip out just yet.

Something was bugging me though. Like when you know there was something important you were supposed to do, but just couldn't remember. When I walked into the next room it hit me. The relic was still sitting there on the table where we'd left it. And it was glowing like crazy. How had Abbey missed that on her way into my room? Speaking of Abbey, I realized she was behind me about to come into the room with a full view of a glowing Kur relic.

"Oh crap," I muttered. Before she or anyone else could come forward, I rushed to the table and grabbed the artifact.

"Come on, come on, where am I going to put this?" My eyes were leaping around the room like a frog on several cups of coffee. Finally, they settled on the couch. It was a long shot but it would have to do. I pulled back a pillow, stuffed the relic under and threw a blanket over. I put the pillow back and jumped on the coach, covering my makeshift hiding place with my arm. This all happened in about fifteen seconds, of course, so I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

Everyone else came into the room. I watched my family look from the place on the table, then to me. I smiled slightly, so Abbey wouldn't notice. Doyle chuckled slightly and it made me feel a little better. Fisk elbowed him in the stomach, which shut him up. Abbey didn't notice any of this.

She leaned casually against the wall. "So, how have you all been? Living on the airship can't be that comfortable, can it?" She straightened, as if she'd remembered something. "Did you find out anything about Fiskerton's Lemurian ancestry? Anything about Kur?"

There was a group flinch at that last word. Dad covered quickly, before the rest of us could even sputter at her abrupt question. "I'm not really sure if you're involved in that anymore. You made sure of that. Why don't you just cut to the chase and then you can be on your way out."

Abbey shuffled her feet. "Argost wanted us—Van Rook and I—to send out a…a message to everyone that was a part of….well, our crowd. H-he wanted to make it sure it got out to everyone possible. It was urgent."

There was a pause. Nobody else spoke and I knew they were giving Abbey the time to get her words out. I'd never really seen her this uncomfortable. It wasn't like her to get nervous at all. She was usually so confident. After a second, she started again, this time her words coming faster with less stuttering.

"I didn't know what to think at the time. I thought he must've been plotting something. H-he always is. Always three steps ahead before he even thinks about taking one. I just wasn't sure what it was. I couldn't exactly ask either or he might get suspicious and I couldn't risk it, didn't want to risk it. It was cowardly of me and—"

"Oh my god, just spit it out already!" Doyle interrupted coldly.

She took a deep breath and looked directly at me. "He's put a bounty on Zak's head. A _large_ bounty for Zak to be brought to him, dead or alive."

Everyone else gasped but I didn't really get why. In fact, in a way I was kind of relieved. I know that must sound kind of silly, but it confirmed that my dream had just been a dream. If he'd known about me being Kur, Argost would have only wanted me alive. And I'd kind of expected something like this for awhile. I knew he was seriously upset about me stopping him from getting "Kur" and would want to take it out on me as much as he could.

Personally, I thought I had more serious things to worry about then what Argost wanted to do to me while he thought I was a meddlesome child. I was more worried about what he would do to me when…if he found out I was more than some little kid.

For maybe half a minute, there was silence, but in a way that was louder than anything they could have said. I was looking down. Even if I wasn't surprised, I was still considering what this would mean.

"And he didn't say wh—" Mom asked but stopped. I looked up to see why and only then was I caught off guard.

Abbey must've ran while we were thinking about what she said. She was gone.

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Pretty, Please Review! I love getting them. You'll see Abbey again later, by the way. And the next couple chapters are more exciting, don't worry!


	3. The Reflection

Hey Readers! So I finished this chapter a lot earlier than I thought I would. I guess it's cause I was looking forward to writing it. But, please enjoy! Disclaimer: One again, I don't own the Secret Saturdays.

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We didn't go out looking for her. We knew we wouldn't find her anyway. She had her jetpack with her and even if Doyle had used his, she had a pretty good head start.

My parents said I should just try to go back to sleep. Yeah, right, like that was going to happen. After that dream I was kind of scared to go back to sleep. And after tonight, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to sleep with all these thoughts racing through my head. So I was surprised to find that as soon as I put my head down on my pillow, I was completely exhausted. It wasn't long before I was out.

It felt like I'd only been asleep for a few minutes before Mom was shaking me awake. I hadn't dreamt of anything, or if I had I couldn't remember.

"Zak, you got to wake up, hon," she whispered.

I pulled the covers up over my head. "Fi'e more minu…."

"Nope. Come on, sweetheart. If you don't get up quick, Komodo will eat your breakfast," she said.

I bolted out of bed and ran to the kitchen.

The airship was a whole lot smaller than our house had been. It wasn't really built for people to be living in it for too long, but we had used it plenty of times when we were stuck somewhere overnight with nowhere else to sleep. It had three bedrooms. One for Mom and Dad, one for Doyle, and one for me. Fisk had been camping out on the couch while Komodo had just taken up the floor with a couple of blankets and pillows. Zon usually stayed outside wherever we had stopped for the night.

The kitchen wasn't much more than a small fridge, microwave and a puny countertop. Still, Mom had managed to make up some pancakes and a little bit of bacon. Sure enough, Komodo was trying to eat up what was left after everyone else had finished.

"Hey, hey, hey, I still need to eat some of that!" I grabbed a plate and piled most of what was left on, but still gave Komodo a couple pieces of bacon. I didn't know how he had managed to sleep through last night, but I was kind of glad he had.

Doyle and Fisk were scarfing down what was left of their own breakfast. Dad was on the other side of the ship, driving us….somewhere. Through the window, I could see Zon was outside, flying along with the ship. She probably wanted the exercise or something.

"Hey, look who finally decided to wake up and join the rest of the world!" Doyle announced when I sat down and start shoveling food into my mouth. "I was about to go in there with a bucket of ice water."

"Oh, be quiet," Mom said to her brother as she joined us. "When you're done come meet us up front. We've got to talk about something." She went up with Dad.

"Gee, what could that possibly be about?" I said sarcastically.

"Not Abbey, actually," Doyle said. I must've looked skeptical because he kept going. "Well maybe a little bit, but for the most part, probably not. Which reminds me, you said that you and Abbey had been talking before the rest of us came in. Um…what did she say?"

"Not much. Just that she needed to talk to me about something and that it was important."

"Oh." Doyle was silent for a few seconds, staring off into space. Then he came back around and focused on me. "Well hurry up so we can get to that talk and get started on the more interesting stuff." He got up, tossed his dishes in the sink and started to walk out.

"Wait, so you already know what it's about?"

"Of course I do. They told me before you got up."

"Why am I always the last to know everything?"

"Because…you're eleven?" He smirked at me and left.

"Unbelievable!" I said, turning to Fisk. "That's totally unfair! Don't you think so?"

Fisk shrugged. "_Kinda,"_ he muttered and followed Doyle out. Well, that was a little bit of an improvement. Before last night, I hadn't heard him say a word since….Well, anyway he was talking now. Just not much. I thought I might've had an idea about what was bugging him, but I wasn't sure and wasn't going to say anything about it until I knew for sure.

I finished my breakfast quickly, downed a quick glass of milk, and ran out after everyone else.

When I found them, everyone was clearly waiting for me. The ship was on autopilot, but I still didn't know where we were going. We were too high for me to tell through the window. I jumped into a chair next to Dad and sighed.

"What's wrong?" my father asked.

"Am I about to get yelled at?" I said, my voice sounding whiny.

"Um, no," Mom said, raising an eyebrow. "But we did want to talk a little about what Abbey said."

_Here we go. _"Mmkay. So, Argost wants to get back at me for my kicking his butt down in Antarctica and stopping him from getting Kur. Not that surprising actually. I'm just glad he hasn't found out yet."

"Why would you think he had found out? It's only been a few days."

I hesitated. What was I supposed to say? _Well, last night I had this weird dream that Argost had somehow gotten a hold of me, beat me up, and found out that I was actually Kur. _Then my Mom would either tell me everything was going to be okay or start talking about how prophetic dreams had been theorized before, neither of which I really wanted to hear. Dad would tell me it was nothing to worry about, which I might've wanted to hear. Doyle would laugh at me for freaking out over nothing.

"No reason. Just….worrying over nothing." I shrugged and switched the subject back. "But we'll just try to stay away from Argost and his cronies for awhile."

"Why do you think we're flying so high? The airship is easily spotted," Dad said. "But you're right. Luckily, after his loss with Kur, Argost isn't too likely to try anything too big for awhile until he cools off and heals up. But we should still keep moving ."

"Speaking of that, where are we going?" I asked.

"Well," Dad stood up and began pacing "Last night, before Abbey came in, we talked about how we needed to find out more about Kur, right?" I nodded and he continued. "We thought, seeing as we had to move around a lot for awhile, we might as well start on that. So we're heading to—"

"Kur's tomb," I finished. I hadn't thought about going back there, actually. We never really thoroughly searched the place. We just ran in to try and stop Argost and when we found out he'd taken something, we figured that was the most important thing and left. The tomb had had information about Fisk being a Lemurian. Maybe it had some more stuff in it we hadn't found.

"But aren't the secret scientists going to get suspicious if we suddenly just start researching Kur, even if they know we already found it? I mean him," Doyle said.

"Well, then we just won't tell them."

It didn't take long to make it back to the tomb. We hadn't been too far from it to start from and apparently we'd been flying for several hours before I'd woken up. We landed and hid the airship behind a few trees.

The area hadn't changed much since we'd last been here. From the outside, it wasn't completely clear that there was a tomb inside. We didn't even figure it out until Mom looked over our research again. I still remember that surge of energy I had when Fisk was fighting that cryptid. I didn't know what was going on. I could feel all of the cryptids' energy and it overpowered everything else. It was kind of like having a massive migraine at a rock concert. With fireworks.

"Alright," Dad said as everyone piled out of the airship. "We'll just take a quick look around and see if we can find anything. I don't want to spend too much time here." Everybody nodded.

The outside was pretty much a stadium. I was pretty sure that there'd been work done to it since it was built by the Sumerians, what with the cages that had formerly held cryptids. Not to mention there was no way it could have lasted that long by itself. The entrance to the tomb, as we'd found out, was inside, protected by a cryptid that I had set free (whoops). However, when we got there, there was no cryptids or people in sight.

The stairway that led down to the tomb was covered in dust and dirt but it was still the same as it had been. There was no light down there, but we'd made sure to grab some of the flashlights from the ship.

I realized with a shock that, technically, this was _my_ tomb we were walking in to. From the looks on the others' faces, they must've realized this too. What was the point of building a tomb, if Kur wasn't dead? I wondered if my parents would put me here after I….never mind. Bad thought. I didn't want to consider it and I _definitely _didn't want to bring it up. Still walking into Kur's tomb—my tomb—felt very awkward and I had to agree with Dad; I didn't want to spend too much time here.

I never really got a chance to look around last time we were here. Now, I was surprised with all the details on the walls. I guess back then, the Sumerians had a lot of time on their hands, what with there being no TV or video games or anything. There was artwork along the walls telling stories. Pictures of animals that seemed more unique than most. Cryptids. I didn't see that many normal animals on the wall, except a couple snakes every here and there. There was writing too, but it was obviously in Sumerian. I'd ask Mom to see if she could understand any of it later.

We passed through some rooms I hadn't seen last time. Most of them were empty or filled with old pieces of crumbling pottery. One was filled with tablets covered in ancient writing, kind of like a library.

"The Sumerians were the first people to make a writing system," Mom told us. "They probably would've considered it something very great."

"How is this stuff all still here if it's been, like, thousands of years? Shouldn't be dust or something?" I asked her.

"It does seem a little strange. It looks like the Sumerians made sure to make this very secure. Most of the artifacts from this age have been lost. This place is an archaeologist's dream. It's odd that nobody ever found it." Mom grabbed one of the tablets and shone her flashlight over it. "I'll stay in here and look these over. I'll call out if I find anything interesting."

We kept moving through several more chambers. After a little while, we came across one that really struck me. And I though the hallways looked detailed. This room was absolutely full of pillars and fading artwork. I realized it was really light in here, so I turned off my flashlight. The real reason that it stood out though, was that in the exact center of the room was a pool of water. Not like a puddle but like a small, circle of water. It even looked like it was several feet deep. There was a ring of what looked like silver surrounding it with more Sumerian writing that I couldn't decipher.

"I know a lot of temples had these kinds of ponds. It's kind of interesting that it's inside though. It should've evaporated by now," Dad said.

Doyle pointed to the ceiling. "Rainwater could have gotten in through there." I looked up and was surprised to see a hole in the ceiling, the exact shape and size of the pool. That must've been where the light was coming from. I walked up to the edge and stared into the water. Instantly I took a step back, and then realized I didn't know why. I just knew there was something wrong with the water. Hesitantly, I took a step forward again and looked into the water. I gasped but managed to cover it as a cough.

I had no reflection. I cast absolutely no reflection on the water. What was I, a vampire or something? I waved my hand in front of it. Nothing. Not a hint of me in that water. Fisk and Dad, who were closest to the pool, cast an obvious reflection. I skittered away from the water before anybody else could notice.

"Well let's keep moving. There's not much in here."

"Um," I hesitated. What was I supposed to say? '_I'm not casting a reflection, and I want to figure out why'_? Yeah I know Doyle would say I was a vampire or something too if I said _that. _"I just want to…stay in here for a sec. It's kind of cool. I'll follow you out, don't worry."

Fisk looked suspicious but Doyle and Dad shrugged and kept moving. Komodo nudged Fisk and they moved out of the room.

Okay, now to figure out what was up with the pool. I knew for a fact that I usually reflected in water and mirrors and stuff. I'd seen my reflection in the window just this morning. I dipped my finger in the water. For whatever reason, I thought that might tell me something. The surface rippled just like normal water would. I took my finger out, rubbing the water off on my shirt.

Well, needless to say, I had no idea what was going on. That seemed to be happening a lot these days. With Kur and Abbey and…everything. I didn't no if I could handle this. I mean, I was only eleven, after all. I was kinda smart, but not really. How was I going to control this if I had no idea how? My parents were geniuses and they didn't have any idea what was going on!

I groaned and kicked at the water. All that managed to do was get my shoe wet. I groaned again and started pacing. "How am I supposed to do this? I have no idea what I'm supposed to do! I'm a good guy! It isn't supposed to work this way!" I complained out loud.

"You sure about that?" a voice said. I jumped at least two feet and spun around to see…nobody. There was no one there. Just me. I was sure I heard a voice….

"Hey brain-dead! Down here." Okay, I knew I heard something that time and I knew where it came from. Skeptical, I walked back towards the pool. There was still the hint of a ripple from when I kicked at the water. It shook my reflection so it looked weird. Wait. What?

Force of ultimate evil or not, I was pretty sure I wasn't going crazy. Just ten seconds ago, there had definitely not been a reflection there. But now, there it was, clear as day.

"Ugh. You'd think I'd be used to weird stuff happening," I muttered.

"Yeah, you'd think you would be," I said. Okay, whoa. Pause again. I didn't say that. But I saw my reflection's lips move. And it was _my_ voice that I heard. I lifted my arm to scratch at my head in confusion. My reflection…didn't reflect me. It stayed the same as it had been a second ago. I swung my arms out. No response. I did three jumping jacks. Nothing. I jumped up and down, ran around the circle and waved at the water, feeling like an idiot the entire time. Nothing changed. It didn't even move when I ran around.

Then reflection-me crossed his arms. "You're kind of slow aren't you?"

I sprung back. Immediately I thought of Zak Monday. _He_ was an almost perfect reflection of me that would've looked like a reflection. Almost perfect. His hair was different. And in the pool, my hair hadn't been switched up. And I didn't really think it was him. But I had to figure this out soon before Mom and Dad called out for me or came in.

"Come on, you don't have all day. You're parents are probably going to call you out for something soon. You know that."

I did know that. I'd just thought that. For like the billionth time, I walked back up to the water and sat down. My reflection was still standing. Man, that was weird! I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. "Okay…so what are you?" I asked.

Reflection-me rolled his eyes. Or my eyes. Oh whatever. "Just think of me as your conscious. If I explained the whole thing to you, you'd probably just get confused. Basically, I'm you. Just smarter. A lot smarter. I know things about you, you probably haven't even figured out yet."

"Oh yeah?" I snapped. I was getting on my nerves. Or he was getting on my nerves. Ugh, this was annoying.

"Yeah. You're actually still pretty hungry after that breakfast you just had. You want some real food." That….was true actually. Okay, Reflection: 1. Me: 0. "You're seriously sick of being in the airship and want to go back home. Even though you wouldn't admit it, you're kind of mad at Fisk about it seeing as he destroyed the house to find Kur, and Kur was there the whole time." That wasn't true! Or… was it? Reflection: 2. Me: Still 0.

"Speaking of that, you _know_ why Fisk won't talk to you. It's because he's the Kur Guardian. He's supposed to protect the world from you, stop the world from _your_ evilness. He's scared that he's going to have to fight you. And you're upset about that too, which is why you won't talk to him either. You're upset that he stole your job. That he's the one who's supposed to stop Kur, and not you."

"Okay, shut up," I muttered between clenched teeth. Reflection-me smirked and continued.

"And about that. You're only worried about controlling your powers because you think you're evil—"

"Shut up!"

"You know that if you're powers start to influence you, like your Dad was starting to say last night, that you won't be able to stop it. Like what happened here." He pointed up towards the stadium above. "And what happened in Antarctica when you were fighting 'Kur'. You know that you won't be able to take it."

"Stop it!" I shouted.

"That dream last night? You think it's the future. That it's going to come true and that Argost is gonna find out and take you away from your parents so they can't protect you. And he'll make you do all sorts of evil stuff. And then you'll just do it without even trying to stop."

"I said stop!" I covered my ears, closed my eyes and started to back away. But I could still hear his voice drilling into my brain, every word like a slap to the face.

"You're weak and you know it. But Kur is strong. Kur can control an army of cryptids. And if you're Kur, then all that power is yours', whether you like it or not."

"SHUT UP!" I screamed.

"Just face it, Zak. You're evil. And there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"YOU'RE WRONG! YOU'RE WRONG!"

It was quiet. I opened my eyes to see that the reflection had changed. It was me, the real me. When I moved, it copied me. In the water I could see that my eyes were wide and looked a little watery. And they were flaring bright orange. I fell down to my knees, breathing heavily like I'd been running. I took a deep breath, calming down. I was too angry. I couldn't let that show. Slowly, the light faded away until my reflection was normal again.

"You're wrong," I whispered. There was no response. For a minute, I just sat there, thinking and staring at my reflection.

"Zak?" I jumped and almost fell in the water. It was my mother, peeking in from the doorway. "I found something interesting. You should come and see." Her eyes lingered on mine. For a second, I was worried that my eyes had turned orange again. But after a moment she left.

I glanced at my reflection. Normal.

I walked out of the chamber in silence, but those words were still echoing in my head, like he was shouting.

"_Just face it, Zak. You're evil. And there's nothing you can do to stop it." _

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DUN DUN DUN!

Sumerian temples actually did have a pond in the forecourt, which I kind of put in here. Even though this is a tomb not a temple. Ha. Or maybe it can be both. That's about all I want to say for now though. Don't worry everything will be explained later!

Pretty Please Review!


	4. Crash

AH! I haven't updated in forever. SORRY. I have a billion different excuses but I really should have finihsed this awhile ago. But the new season premiere got me back into the show and this story. I know what's happened in the show is different from this, and the stuff coming up is a lot different too, but I'm going to keep going with my origonal storyline. Anyway hope you enjoy this!

Disclaimer: Yeah, its still not mine.

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When I made it back into that library-room, everyone else was already there. They were crowded around Mom, who was holding one of the old tablets. Couldn't they have just written this stuff down in a book? I mean tablets, stones, the walls; you'd think that putting it down in a book might be easier. Or had books been invented back then?

Mom glanced up when I walked in, then went back to the tablet. "Good, now we can get started."

"You haven't even read it already?" Doyle asked incredulously, leaning against the wall and coughing when a cloud of dust came up.

"Only the beginning. But that's all I needed for it to catch my attention," Mom muttered, pulling out a book, from her backpack. Switching hands so that she could hold the flashlight with her left and the book with her right, she flipped through the pages, glancing up at the tablet every now and again. She continued like this for a minute or two, going faster and faster.

"Alright, I give up," I said, throwing my hands up in the air, making Doyle chuckle. "What exactly are you doing, Mom?"

"Well, my Sumerian is a little rusty and I'm pretty sure I'm reading this wrong," she said, confused.

"Why, what does it look like?" Dad asked.

"Um. Well, it starts out with the information we've already heard. About Kur _supposedly _being a sort of spirit or even God of the underworld or netherworld. It seems like most Sumerians wanted little or nothing to do with him, nor did they approve of him. Some probably did, most likely the same ones who built this tomb."

"Anything in there about why there would be a tomb for someone who isn't….well, dead?" I said, avoiding anyone's gaze.

Mom began to say something, and then stopped, returning to translating. "Not that I can see. It could be more of a temple than a tomb though. I'm not completely sure. It could go either way. But the part that I'm confused about is the Naga."

"_The Naga_?" Fisk asked. Instinctively, I glanced at him, and then quickly turned back to my mother before he noticed.

"_Speaking of that, you know why Fisk won't talk to you. It's because he's the Kur Guardian. He's supposed to protect the world from you, stop the world from your evilness. He's scared that he's going to have to fight you." _

Stupid, darn reflection.

"Zak?" Dad asked. Everyone was looking at me. Before they started getting worried or anything, I shook my head, focusing.

"Sorry. Just…zoning out for a second," I said. Mom gave me a sympathetic look and turned back to the tablet.

"Yeah, it mentions the Naga in here. It's a little hard to decipher, though," Mom explained.

"Here, just read it aloud and we'll see if we can figure it out," Doyle reasoned. There was a pause while my family nodded their agreement.

"Well, alright." Mom took a deep breath. "Before I really started looking into it, I hadn't heard of the Naga being in Sumerian mythology at all. I was under the impression that their legend started in Hinduism, which was a good deal of time after Sumer had already fell. But here, they're definitely mentioned."

"So the Naga are a lot older than we thought they were. That's not that important, really, is it?" Doyle interrupted.

Mom glared at her younger brother. "Let me finish. Still, the description here isn't all that flattering. The Naga are called oppressors and tormentors to all. For the most part, they were never really on the specific side of good or evil. They did what they wanted, as long as they benefited from it in the long run." At this, I thought I saw Dad glance at Doyle, but nobody else seemed to notice and I didn't want to bring it up or stop Mom.

"They seem to be associated with water and nature. They would feel malevolently towards humans when they weren't treating nature as they should, causing droughts or floods. They also were connected to guarding treas—"

"Okay, I'm sure this is fascinating and all, but please can we get to the point?" Doyle blurted out. "We can hear the rest of the history later. I don't know about the rest of you, but personally, I wouldn't mind getting out of here."

I expected Mom to get angry or stick her tongue out at him at least. However, she seemed to get what he was saying and let the interruption slide.

"The point of all this is that the Naga were supposed to be great enemies with certain other beings, or more likely, cryptids. But the creature that they seem to clash with the most seems to be….. Kur."

This got more of the reaction that Mom appeared to be hoping for. There was a collective gasp from Dad, Fisk and I. Doyle on the other hand seemed to have been expecting something more….exciting.

"The Naga were Kur's enemies?" Dad asked disbelievingly.

"Well, they probably still _are _Kur's enemies, but apparently yes," Mom nodded.

"_That's_ what you though you were reading wrong? That Kur and the Naga weren't all buddy-buddy with each other? Heck, I could've told you that," Doyle scoffed.

Okay, Doyle had a point. We'd never really been all that friendly with the Naga, but I just assumed they were normal bad guys. Or bad snake-people. Whatever. I hadn't really thought about why Rani Nagi had had the Kur relic in the first place. Or why they had been so interested in finding Kur. Had they been trying to do what we had? Were they trying to stop Kur from being released and wreaking havoc on the world?

"But…wait," I mumbled, then got clearer when everyone turned to me. "If the Naga were, or _are_ I guess, Kur—" I hesitated then forgot about it and decided to just come out and say it. "I mean _my_ enemies, and I'm supposed to be evil and everything, then doesn't that make the Naga …..the good guys?"

Doyle, Fisk and Dad gaped for a second, as if they hadn't thought about this. Mom, however, was, as always, two steps ahead and already had an answer.

"Not necessarily. Just because they're fighting a _supposedly—" _She stressed the word here. "¾evil force, doesn't mean they're completely good."

Dad, seeming to come back to reality, joined in. "As they've made clear, they're willing to do some distinctly evil things themselves. Just fighting against something bad doesn't make that person or creature in this case, good. It goes a lot deeper than that."

And I'm sure he was about to go into this big deep thing that would've either been very refreshing to hear, or very boring, but he never go the chance. Because just then, a new, different voice joined into our little powwow.

"Well, I suppose that is one thing that you're right about." It came from behind us, toward the doorway. None of us had noticed anything, but we all jumped as if we had been electrocuted when we heard the voice.

I recognized it. And I knew I didn't want to look because it would just confirm my guess. But I did anyway. I _always _looked, even if my parents or my brain were constantly telling me not too.

And I flinched when I saw that I was right. Could my luck really get any worse than it has been lately? Though I probably shouldn't think that or a certain blue tiger would end up popping out of nowhere and make everything a billion times worse.

In the doorway, were the threatening figures of at least six Naga. And of course, because it wouldn't be a party otherwise, Rani Nagi was right at the head. She was staring straight at me with a strange look in her eyes. A mix of a weird kind of joy and pure, absolute hatred. I knew she didn't like us, but that glare hadn't been there the last time we'd run into her. How long had they been there? We were too focused on the tablet to pay attention so most likely a little while, listening into our conversation. Which probably meant……

Oh, crap.

So, it had taken…..what, like _four days _for someone else to find out about the whole Kur thing? Someone, somewhere, must seriously have it out for me for it to have only taken that long. Didn't I deserve at least a five day break before we had to deal with this sort of thing?

The Naga walked, or slithered, into the room. My family and I instantly moved back. I could see Doyle's eyes jumping around quickly, like he was looking for a decent escape route. He could see how we were being backed into a corner, the Naga swiftly blocking our exits. He caught my eye and made an attempt at a smile. I could see right through it of course, but I still returned the smile anyway.

"Well, well, well," Rani Nagi hissed at us. "I really never would've guessed that the boy was Kur. Then again, it appears you didn't either." She snickered. "And to think, I just wanted my relic back from you. But it doesn't really matter much anymore does it? I'll even let you keep it."

I waited for someone to say something, anything. A snide remark, a threat, a joke to distract her while someone pulled out a weapon or made a daring escape attempt that would probably just result in a fight anyway. But…nothing? Absolutely nothing? The silence was horrifying. Sure, my voice had abandoned me about the same time my stomach jumped up into my throat, but I was a kid and that should probably count for an excuse. I was scared, so of course I was staying quiet. For now anyway.

Rani Nagi just kept talking, like she didn't care that nobody else was saying anything, or more likely, didn't care. "Now we don't have to keep looking blindly for Kur. I can just get rid of you right here and now. But I promise it will be quick, easy."

Thankfully, this was when everybody seemed to find their voices again. And their weapons. Mom's sword was out before the Naga queen could even finish speaking.

"If you think you've got a chance of getting within another foot of him, you're a lot more insane then we thought you were," Mom said, taking several steps forward, gripping the sword's hilt with both hands.

The Naga queen laughed, a high pitched sound that scratched at my ears like nails on a chalkboard. "Of course I considered it, Saturdays. I just don't consider you foolish humans and your feeble cryptids threats."

There was silence after that, aside from a collective clenching of jaws from my family, myself included. Doyle cracked his knuckles and started bouncing up and down eagerly. I could tell he wanted to fight; to get out all the tension that had been building up inside everyone the past few days.

For a moment, nothing happened. Neither side seemed to want to throw the first punch. I took a step back, slowly so I wouldn't make anyone jump, and accidentally knocked my foot against a pile of stone tablets that Mom had stacked up to look at later. There was a loud clatter as the one on top fell to the ground.

"Whoops," I muttered, but it didn't matter. Everyone had jumped and my Dad had impulsively swung out at Rani Nagi with his Battle Glove hard enough to nearly knock her down, and these Naga were several feet bigger than us. The fight had started.

I ran forward and nearly got clotheslined by Fisk when he outstretched his arm, stopping me.

"What?" I whined. "I can take 'em. I'll be fine!"

Fisk shook his head. "_It's too dangerous_," he argued.

"Too dangerous? Are you kidding me? A couple days ago I just took on our biggest enemy ever and I was fine!" I moaned. One of the Naga started approaching me and Fisk kicked out at it. It stumbled back into Doyle, who jumped on its back and started pummeling the creature.

Fisk moved forward to help, then hesitated and stayed back with me. For a moment or two, we watched the fight. I cast a few glares at Fisk but he wasn't paying any attention to me, his eyes following Komodo and Zon. Komodo was invisible most of the time. The only way we could tell where he was was when a Naga would cry out in pain at random, Komodo biting at their tails. Zon was having a hard time flying, but the ceiling was high enough so that she could still dive-bomb the creatures with rocks or tablets.

Dad had pulled out a Cortex Disruptor and shot at one of the Naga. She dodged and it hit the wall. The entire room shook and dust fell from the ceiling. All movement stopped for a moment. After a few seconds, the walls stopped shaking and were still again.

"Watch it or the whole tomb will collapse on us," Mom said, and then returned to dueling with her Naga.

Dad put the weapon aside and started fighting with his Battle Glove again. Doyle, put away any weapons he had had before and started fighting with brute strength alone. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough as the Naga he'd been fighting knocked him to the ground.

Fisk moved forward instinctively, then stopped again. He was torn between trying to protect me and helping everyone else. None of the Naga had gotten close to me in awhile, everyone else managing to keep them preoccupied. Without Fisk, we were outnumbered and I didn't want anyone to get hurt.

"Oh, just go. I'll be fine," I insisted. He looked at me for a moment, the corners of his mouth turning up, the closest thing I'd seen to a smile from him in days. Ha, maybe my reflection was wrong.

"_Stay out of the way_," he said, but not in a condescending 'I'm tougher than you so let me do all the fighting' kinda way. I nodded and he turned away towards the fight. One of them was heading towards me, scaly arms outstretched. Personally, I doubted he wanted a hug. Before I could blink, Fisk tackled the Naga to the ground with a roar. He pushed him into the Naga who was attacking Doyle.

I considered joining the fight. There was no way that I was going to just sit and watch on the sidelines during fights just because Fisk wanted me to. But….they looked like they were doing alright without me. I was eleven after all; it wasn't like I was a huge bodybuilder who could take down all of these cryptids in one fell swoop. Still, I kept myself at the ready, prepared to jump in with the claw if I needed to.

I was watching Mom nearly stab Rani Nagi in the chest when another Naga snuck up on me from the side and grabbed my wrist. She twisted it around, twisting my arm along with it.

"Hey!" I blurted. I tried to pry her fingers loose but the Naga's grip was firm. Instead, I grabbed the claw and jumped up. Her hold on my wrist was a slight problem, but I still managed to get high enough to swing my weapon at her head. The collision made her cry out, and she let go of my wrist, her serpentine hands rising to clutch at her head.

I made a run for it, but the Naga wasn't done with me. She swung her tail out under my feet and I tripped. I broke the fall with my arm but the wind was still knocked out of me. The claw was knocked out of my hand and rolled away towards Fisk. He didn't notice it, as he was trying to keep one of the larger Nagas away from Dad. I gasped, trying to take in more air.

"Zak!" Mom called out. I looked up at her and noticed her eyes widening. I turned my head around to see the Naga reaching down for my leg. It would be a lot harder to get away a second time, especially without my claw.

I didn't have enough time to stand up, so, feeling like an idiot, I started crawling along the hard floor. I knew I wouldn't make it that far. Then I noticed the small amount of light in the room bounce against something shiny. The Cortex Disruptor that Dad had put down after it shook the tomb was a few feet in front of me. Without thinking, I reached out for it. Just as I felt the cool metal in my hand, I felt something much rougher against my ankle. Without turning around I knew the Naga had grabbed hold of me.

"Got you," she hissed menacingly.

"You wanna bet?" I retorted. I turned around, my ankle throbbing in protest. _Please, please don't miss, _I prayed silently. I put both hands around the handle and aimed.

BANG!

"YES!" I cried happily as I hit the Naga straight in the chest. As she was thrown backwards by the impact, she freed my ankle. That was the good news. The bad news was that because I had hit her from such a close distance, she was thrown back a _little_ too far. And by a little, I mean she hit the wall way too hard. Now, I don't mean I was worried about her safety. What I mean is that the force of that Naga hitting the wall was a lot harder than the force it took to shake the walls from my Dad's missed shot with the Cortex Disruptor.

For a second time, everyone stilled as the walls shook. This time though, they didn't seem to be about to stop. Everything was shaking. Tablets were knocking against the ground. It felt like a complete earthquake. This thing had been here since Sumerian times and even though Mom had said it was secure, it looked like it only took a few knocks against the wall to bring it down.

"RUN!" Dad cried. Fisk quickly scrambled over to me and helped me up. I tossed the Cortex Disruptor to Dad as he followed Doyle and Mom out of the room. Fisk picked me up before I could protest and bolted towards the exit. I made sure to grab the claw on the way out.

The Naga weren't that far behind us. I wasn't worried though. I was pretty sure they were probably a little bit more worried about trying to get out of there, like we were. It was hard to maneuver through the halls of the tomb this time (we'd left our flashlights in the library) but we managed to make it out just as the stairway and the entrance collapsed. I didn't see any of the Naga make it out but I doubted they were gone. It was never that easy.

We stopped for a second and listened to the roar of rock pounding against rock as the entire tomb collapsed into itself.

I sighed. "That went well."

* * *

The Secret Scientists are coming up next! Even though I probably don't deserve it after that wait, please review!


	5. Brothers

Hey everyone! Haha, I made it my goal to get in another chapter before New Years and I did it! I knew back when I made the story plan this chapter was going to be short, but I think it's important and gets some stuff in. So...um enjoy!

Disclaimer: I still don't own The Secret Saturdays. Just so you know. Nothing's changed.

* * *

We got back to the airship and were in the air again in record time. Everyone seemed to put off their exhaustion while they were running, but as soon as we were safe, everyone was happy to just lie down and take a few deep breaths. Out of everyone, I was probably in the best shape, seeing as I hadn't really been part of the fight. My ankle was throbbing a little from when the Naga had grabbed it but it started to fade as we kept flying. There might be a bruise, but it was definitely nothing serious.

Mom, Dad, Komodo and Zon seemed to be all right too. Mom had a cut on her arm and Dad was limping a little but they had both been using weapons the entire time and hadn't gotten too hurt. Komodo, being invisible for the entire fight, didn't have a scratch on him and Zon had managed to stay out of the way of pretty much everyone.

Fisk and Doyle had the worst of it, but still they seemed to have been lucky and hadn't broken anything or gotten seriously hurt. They both said they felt completely exhausted and Fisk had a hard time moving around too quickly. Doyle's eye was starting to turn purple and he said his back hurt, but Mom put some ice on it and he started to relax. They would probably be bruised tomorrow, but pretty much everyone had gotten used to that by now.

"I suppose that could've been worse," Dad admitted after we had been flying for several minutes.

"How? How could it have been worse? We found out pretty much nothing, got attacked by the Naga, who now know about Zak's secret, and we tore down an ancient temple that probably was our only shot at getting any answers. We just totally _bombed _if you ask me. Aren't the good guys supposed to win?" Doyle complained.

Mom narrowed her eyes at him. "At least nobody got—"

"Hurt. I know, I know," Doyle finished, rolling his eyes. I thought about saying that he was acting like the eleven-year-old here, but thought better of it. He'd been a little bit off since we'd run into Abby, and it was probably better to just leave him alone.

"So…now what are we going to do?" I asked.

Nobody answered for a minute. I realized we were kind of just making it up as we went along.

"Doyle is right about one thing," Dad said. "The temple was pretty much the only thing we could think of for finding a decent amount of information on Kur that we didn't already have."

"Come on," I scoffed. "There must be a million ancient libraries and temples out there. Can't we just find one that might have anything from Sumerian times?"

"It's not quite that simple, Zak," Mom said. "There's very little information about the Sumerians. Most of it has been lost and I imagine a good deal of what was left was in that temple. That's why we were so excited originally when we found the Kur Stone; it was the first major Sumerian artifact that the Secret Scientists ever found."

"Woah, woah woah," I stopped her. "The first Sumerian artifact?"

She nodded. "We found a few others. Nothing that was really ever that important, but still we have found a few other things."

"Well, where are they?" Doyle asked, moving the ice pack further up his back.

"Some of them were at our house, and I'm pretty sure they probably got destroyed or more likely lost after it collapsed."

"_Sorry_," Fisk muttered, shuffling his feet.

"Oh, no, Fiskerton it's fine," Mom quickly assured him. "We didn't keep any of the really important artifacts at our house."

"Then where are they?" Doyle and I asked in unison.

Mom and Dad exchanged nervous looks. "Well, the other Secret Scientists have them."

"Oh, come _on_!" I blurted. "Can't we ever catch a break?" I had a bad feeling where this might be going. We needed to get some more information on this. The Secret Scientists had our information, thus we had to go talk to then. That meant that we would have to tell them about Kur. They were geniuses, after all. If we walked in and started asking a bunch of stuff about Kur, who we had supposedly caught, they were bound to get suspicious.

"Wait, what?" Doyle asked. "We are not going to waltz up to the scientists and rat out Zak just so we can know more about what's going on. We can find out more some other way."

"As much as I want to agree with you, Doyle, I think we _have_ to go to them. We can get help from them anyway. Having more people on our side can't be a bad thing," Dad put in. I noticed him punch new coordinates into the airship. He'd already made up his mind.

"If they're on our side after they hear about this," Doyle muttered, and then furtively glanced at me. I probably wasn't supposed to hear that last comment.

Shrugging my shoulders, I walked out and headed back towards my room. I collapsed onto my bed and tried to think about anything but where we were currently headed.

Unfortunately, it didn't work. My brain kept returning to thinking about the secret scientists, as if they were a song stuck in my head. I quickly resisted the urge to scream into my pillow, something I hadn't done since I was nine.

We needed a vacation. More specifically, I needed a vacation. A no fighting, no adventure, no cryptids (unless they're invited, of course) vacation. For a week. Maybe even a month, if possible. I just wanted some time to relax and get rid of all this stress for a while. I laughed out loud. Like that was ever going to happen.

I got up and started pacing around my room, trying to occupy my mind. I still refused to scream into a pillow and going to sleep was out of the question because I was still pretty energized after our visit to the tomb. Plus, eleven-year-olds don't take naps. Absolutely not.

It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when Doyle came in and grudgingly told me that we'd arrived.

The Secret Scientists didn't really have any type of secret base. They were secret, after all. Many of the meetings were held at our house, but unfortunately, we didn't _have _a house at the moment. Apparently, while I was moping in my bedroom Dad had called a meeting and Dr. Lawhorn had volunteered his house for the location. It actually wasn't that far from our house actually (our where our house _used_ to be) and the familiar landscape made me feel homesick.

Our family wasn't as close with Dr. Lawhorn as we were with some of the other scientists, so I hadn't been to his house before. Fisk had, back when Zak Monday had come back and made Fisk attack all the nearby Secret Scientists, but he couldn't really remember it all that well. We set down the airship in a dock a lot like the one we had. Or used to have. Everyone else got off the ship immediately, but I was a lot more hesitant. It took a couple more minutes, and quite a lot more pacing, before I was ready to face the other scientists.

My family stood right beside the ship, waiting for me. I nodded my thanks, not sure if I could really say anything at the moment. My heart was going like crazy. I wasn't even this scared when I was going to go against Kur and Argost in Antarctica. This was just a different type of fear: I wasn't scared for my life, or the life of someone I loved. I was scared for what the scientists were going to think of me as soon as they found out I wasn't who they thought I was.

"Come on," Mom said, nudging me forward a little bit. "I think everyone else is already here, and they're bound to be getting impatient."

I nodded again and we walked into Dr. Lawhorn's house.

Clearly, he had as much as money as we did, maybe even more. The place was huge; a modern mansion, complete with secret scientist technology. We'd spent the better part of the last few days stuck on an airship, and the only chance we'd really had to get off it was to go destroy an ancient building. Whenever we passed a lab, Dad would start walking a little slower to peek in, and then he'd emerge looking remorseful. Our footsteps echoed around the hallway as we walked, bouncing back at us.

After a little while, I started to hear very familiar voices. As we got closer, the voices got quieter and quieter, eventually dimming down to what were nearly whispers that were only audible because of the echo. I unconsciously slowed down and my parents were at the door the voices had been coming from before they turned around and realized I was still a few doors behind them.

Dad gave me a sympathetic smile, which I realized I'd been seeing a lot of lately, from both of my parents. "You don't have to come in if you don't want to," he said quietly, so the occupants of the room wouldn't hear it.

Mom nodded. "We can explain everything first. It might even be better if we could try and make them understand what was going on, and then you could come in and actually convince them later."

I sighed with relief. "You could've suggested that earlier."

They both smiled a little. "We'll come and find you when we need you," Mom said.

I nodded and turned away before they could change their minds. I heard them walk inside and exchange anxious greeting with the others. I started walking faster. I really didn't want to be too close when they dropped the pleasantries and started arguing with each other about….well, me. It was a couple seconds before I realized I was being followed.

I stopped and was immediately walked into by a distinctly fury form. "Fisk! What are you doing?" I complained.

He looked down sheepishly. "_I don't want to go in there, either_," he mumbled.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to be alone with him yet. It was bound to be seriously awkward and I had enough things to worry about at the moment. But I couldn't just tell him to go back in there. I sighed.

"Well then come on," I said. We walked on for a couple more steps until the scientists' voices start to dim. I figured we were far enough away and noticed a door on our right. I grabbed the knob and motioned for Fisk to follow me in.

It looked like a spare bedroom. Not that I could picture Dr. Lawhorn inviting anyone into his home for sleepovers regularly. Still, with such a big house he probably had plenty of useless rooms. This was probably one of the most lo-tech ones in the entire house. The walls, carpet and sheets on the bed were all different shades of grey, which was very cheery, and a quick sweep of the finger over the furniture showed a thick layer of dust had collected. There were two windows showing the sunny day outside, and a full-length mirror in the corner, which I refused to look at. I didn't need to see my reflection again for a while. Fisk and I tracked in a little bit of dirt left over from the tomb but I didn't think anybody would come in and notice any time soon.

I shut the door and lay down on the bed. Fisk leaned against the wall and started staring out the window. We stayed like that for a couple minutes in silence. Yeah, I thought, totally not awkward.

"Okay, I can't take it anymore," I said, making Fisk jump. He looked at me as if I'd broken some sort of secret agreement we'd had not to speak. I took a deep breath and sat up, leaning against the pillows. "I know this all kind of…well it's been….difficult…" I had no idea what I was saying.

Fisk seemed to have a basic idea though. "_We haven't been talking?_" he suggested. His eyes were still fixed on the window.

"Yes," I said. "You've been all distant, and I haven't been much better. We've said some stuff to each other but we haven't been talking or hanging out like we used to. I know this is weird and hard and everything but I don't want to lose you, Fisk! You're my brother and I…well, I love you and I just don't want anything to change between us. Kur or not, I'm still Zak. It doesn't….it shouldn't change anything."

He stood there for a moment after my rant, and I thought he was going to disagree with me, start sprouting out a bunch of arguments about how he was the Kur Guardian and he might have to fight me in the future. Then he just stood up straighter and nodded.

"_I was scared_," Fisk said, turning to face me. I made sure to keep his gaze.

"Of me or for me?"

"_Probably both. It was just…a surprise. I wasn't expecting it." _

"And you think I was? We were all caught off guard, bro."

He came over and sat on the edge of the bed. "_Yeah, but we were a team. The Kur Guardian and the kid who was supposed to fight Kur._"

"We never did come up with a decent name for me, did we?" I laughed. He was laughing to and we were both fighting back tears and trying to breath. We laughed like that for a couple more minutes, even though we both knew it really wasn't _that_ funny.

After a few more weak chuckles, I slid down the bed and stared up at the ceiling. "I want it to be like this. Just laughing and having nothing else really matter, as lame as that sounds," I said.

"_I want it that way too. But can we really make things normal?_"

"Probably not completely normal, but we don't have to think about it or talk about it the entire time. We can talk about…I don't know. How we totally kicked the Naga's butts today."

"_And brought down an ancient tomb_," he reminded me.

"Yeah, that too." He smiled and I returned it. "So, what do you say? Brothers?"

"_Brothers_," he nodded.

We hugged and I felt the stress I'd been feeling ease up a little. We sat there and talked for a little while about everything that had happened that day: the tomb, the fight, and having to talk to the scientists. Just as I was talking about how awesome he'd been when he was attacking the Naga, Doyle walked in looking ready to punch someone.

"They want you in there," he said through clenched teeth. "Now."

Fisk and I exchanged looks. He shrugged and gave me a half-smile, trying to look as supportive as he could. It wasn't too encouraging, but I was just glad to have him back on my side that I would have been happy with anything.

I slowly got off the bed and followed Doyle and Fisk out of the room. Neither of them said anything, probably because nobody really did know what to say anyway. If Doyle's current mood was any clue to what the scientists' reaction had been, I could guess that they weren't happy. This time when we were walking down the hallway, I couldn't hear any voices at all. Clearly, they were silent in their little meeting area.

Doyle stopped at the door and took a deep breath, collecting himself before walking into the room. Fisk followed his example and stopped at the door, but he was just waiting for me. I smiled at him and without even stopping to think for a moment, walked through the door. I didn't want to change my mind and run away.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was Dr. Beeman. He was glaring at me with his arms crossed.

"Have a seat, Zak," he said, practically hissing on my name.

I was getting similar looks from the rest of scientists in the room.

Oh yeah, they definitely weren't happy.

* * *

Sorry I couldn't get in the scientists' reactions like you guys wanted. The chapter would've been way too long, in my opinion, unless I condensed everything which I didn't want to do. I promise that's next chapter, with a little more action too, hopefully. That might not fit in either.

Please Review! And Happy New Year!


	6. Energy

I still don't own anything you recognize. Please see the author's note at the end of the chapter for explanations and apologies.

* * *

No, they were definitely not happy.

I tried to avoid the angry looks I was getting and looked around the room instead. The walls and ceiling were completely made of glass, like you would see in a greenhouse. Light shining in from outside gave the room a much happier, nicer atmosphere than it really had. Eight Secret Scientists, not counting my parents and Doyle, were seated around a large round table in the center of the room.

I took an empty seat next to Dad, giving the rest of the room a perfect view of me. Fisk came up and stood behind me, one hand placed on my shoulder. Dr. Lawhorn looked annoyed, but he was looking at Fisk, not me. He was probably still a litter bitter about Fiskerton coming in and beating him up that one night. It hadn't been his fault, as he had been being controlled by someone else, but clearly Dr. Lawhorn wasn't exactly thrilled about having him back in his house.

I don't know why I hadn't noticed it immediately, but the Kur Relic was sitting in the center of the table. It was going crazy because I was so close. I tried not to look at it, but it was kind of distracting. I was relieved when Doyle through a cloth over it so that only a dull glow could be seen.

"Told you it glowed whenever he was around," Doyle said.

"I don't see how that even proves anything," Dr. Beeman snapped. "You said the relic broke right? That you had to put it back together? How do we know you didn't just repair it incorrectly?"

"It's working fine," Doyle practically growled. "Don't you think that would've been the first thing we would've checked?"

The scientists muttered to themselves for a few moments. Dr. Beeman was livid. "Why is it that I'm the only one here who actually thinks that it's absolutely outrageous that they want us to believe that a boy that can't even keep his hair in order is actually the great beast, Kur?"

"What the heck does he have against my hair? Does that really have anything to do with it?" I whispered to Fisk.

"The evidence adds up, Arthur," Dr. Grey said. I noticed Doyle wouldn't look at her when she spoke. She only had a slight resemblance to her sister, but her accent probably still reminded Doyle of Abbey. "We all know about Zak's powers. It's surprising we didn't think that this was possible earlier."

"Why would we have? He's eleven years old!" Dr. Beeman said, his voice rising with every word. He even stood up and started walking around the room. "It's not like he's even that powerful anyway!"

"You didn't see him in Antarctica," Dad put in. "He took down one of the biggest cryptids we've ever seen _and_ Argost without our help." I could feel myself blushing at the pride in his voice.

"So he had an adrenaline rush!" Dr. Beeman threw his hands up in the air, in what I thought was a childish gesture coming from someone who was complaining about me being eleven. "He thought he was fighting Kur! He probably just got some sort of extra energy from wherever and it helped him out! And speaking of that, wasn't it _you_ who came back to us and said that you'd found Kur in Antarctica and had handled it? Obviously, you were lying about that, or you're lying now."

"Arthur, it's understandable why they'd lie to us and tell us that Zak wasn't Kur. But why would they lie and tell us that he _was _Kur? What could they possibly gain from that?" Dr. Bara asked him. When Dr. Beeman didn't answer, he continued. "Now sit down. Everyone believes it but you, so just let it be and let the rest of us talk about what we're going to do about it. Or you can leave now."

Dr. Beeman stood for a few more seconds looking between us and the rest of the scientists. When he realized that nobody was on his side, he slowly sat down and kept his mouth shut, but he continued to glare at me, which I found difficult to ignore.

"Now then, can we actually do something at least somewhat productive?" Dr. Bara asked the group at large. There was a little bit of muttering, but eventually everybody was quiet and relaxed. "Thank you. Now then, I think that first thing's first, we're going to need a demonstration."

"A demonstration? He has to parade his powers around for you?" Doyle narrowed his eyes and Mom threw a pointed look at him.

"Doyle, stop," she murmured. "You're not helping anything."

Doyle glared at the room at large for a moment before returning to the pouting, miserable position he'd been in before.

"What kind of demonstration?" I asked tentatively.

"You said your powers surged in Antarctica, correct?" Dr. Bara asked gently. I remembered how nice he had been when we were trying to get his help with uncovering some of Fisk's deeper thoughts. And I appreciated his pleasant manner that he had with me now, as if this wasn't as scary as everyone else made it out to be. "Now don't take offense to this, but I think it would be best to test whether or not that was just a fluke. Well, not a fluke, but a…well, an adrenaline rush, perhaps, like Dr. Beeman said."

Dr. Beeman snorted, but was otherwise quiet.

"Okay," I sighed. "So what do you want me to do?"

He considered the question for a moment. "We're going to need a cryptid."

Seeing as my family and I were adamant that we would not be allowing Fisk, Komodo or Zon to be used as lab rats for my powers (not that we wanted any cryptids to be used as lab rats), we headed out to the woods surrounding Dr. Lawhorn's home.

We didn't think it was necessary for everyone to come out, but my family insisted that they come along (as if I hadn't expected that). Dr. Bara, Dr. Lawhorn, Dr. Cheechoo and Dr. Grey. Dr. Bara had been my main supporter a few minutes ago, so I was comfortable with him being there. Dr. Cheechoo and Dr. Grey were the scientists I knew best seeing as my parents were closest to them. And it was Dr. Lawhorn's house so he knew the area better than the rest of us. Plus I think he wanted to keep an eye on Fisk, but that was just guesswork on my part.

We reached the edge of the wood and stopped. I could feel my pulse rising. If this didn't work, I wasn't sure if the scientists were going to be willing to help us out. Personally, I had very little doubt anymore that I was, in fact, Kur, but they all did and I had to prove it. No pressure there.

"Alright." Dr. Bara clapped his hands together. "Now Dr. Lawhorn tells me that there are several cryptids in these woods, but there is one in particular that is more powerful and more…energetic than the rest."

"So you want me to control it?" I guessed.

"No, not yet." He shook his head. "We're going to start slowly and work up to that. First, we want to check your senses. As the King of all Cryptids, I think it would be likely for you to be able to sense where in the woods this cryptid is. Because of it's energy levels, Dr. Lawhorn has a homing beacon on it. So you tell us where you think it is, and we'll be able to check it. Simple."

Sounded pretty darn difficult to me. I'd never exactly tried this before. But when I thought about it, I realized that it actually seemed plausible. And there was no hurt in trying. I was sure that if this didn't work, Dr. Bara would just come up with some other test anyway.

"Alright. Give me a minute," I said.

"Take all the time you need," Dr. Bara assured me.

I took a few deep breaths. Breathing helped to calm me down when I needed to use my powers. I gripped the Claw and tapped into my powers. When I could see the orange glow surrounding my weapon, I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Find the cryptid. Wasn't there a game like that? Where you had to find some funny-looking dude in a crowd and it was really hard? I think I had that game somewhere. I'd have to look for it later….

And I was getting seriously distracted.

Cryptid energy. Surely, I'd be able to sense it. I tried to meditate and focus on my own cryptid energy. That managed to block everything out, but I wasn't picking up on anything else. So I tried to push it further out.

Woah.

In my mind, I immediately picked up on a group of…frequencies, I guess. If this was a radar, which it pretty much was, then those were definitely frequencies. I hadn't pushed my energy that far out, but I'd managed to pick up on three distinct frequencies that I recognized as if they were my own heartbeat: Fisk, Komodo and Zon in their positions not too far behind me.

When I figured this out, I almost pulled that ring of energy back in shock. This was actually working. I wanted to laugh, but figured that wouldn't look very professional or "Kur-like". But the cryptids behind me weren't what I was looking for. And seeing as they were currently the only thing I was picking up on, I had to spread it out more so that it covered more of the woods.

_Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. _Concentrate. Now push this energy ring/field/circle-thing out and try and find this big cryptid.

As I pushed it further out again, my brothers' (and Zon's) energies seemed smaller and less significant. There was a myriad of similar energies, though they were less recognizable throughout the entire woods. There was something like a herd of really small ones pretty far off, but they didn't seem too powerful. Probably not the cryptid I was looking for.

There was another one flying around over the woods not too far off, but it seemed to be about as powerful as Zon, so I wasn't worried about it. There were several other ones roaming through the trees at random, but again, there was nothing too powerful.

Maybe he was just trying to trick me up. Maybe there wasn't some big, powerful cryptid in the woods at all. Because from what I was sensing, the most powerful cryptid energy for a good distance was Fisk. Or maybe me, but I doubt he wanted me to try and sense my own cryptid energy. I was just about to tell Dr. Bara this, when I sensed something new. And I was pretty sure it was exactly what he'd been talking about.

"I can sense a cryptid. Physically, it's about three times the size of Fisk and it's energy level is higher than his, but not by a whole lot," I announced. Though I kept my eyes closed to keep up my concentration, I could hear a gasp from behind me that sounded like my mother. She must've been either surprised, impressed or interested by this new development, but I'd figure that out later.

"Good," Dr. Bara commented. "But where is it?"

"Um…." Dr. Lawhorn sounded nervous. "Dr. Bara, it's…."

"Headed right for us!" I finished for him. I opened my eyes and lost most of my concentration on the surrounding cryptids' energies, but I made sure to keep a firm lookout for that big one. "And it's fast. It'll be here any second."

Dr. Bara nodded. "Then we should get back, fast."

And speaking of the word 'fast'….

Something came crashing to the trees. Short, batlike wings sprouted from its back, practically useless for actual flight, but they must've helped with speed. Like I'd said, it was about twice as tall as Fisk, and three times as wide, with muscles that would've made a bodybuilder squirm in envy. The whole creature was a deep shade of purple, except for it's yellow eyes and black wings and claws. It reminded me of a dog: it stood on four legs and had claws and fangs that made me nervous. It's purple fur was short but surrounded all of it's body. And it was growling, like we'd disturbed it's territory.

This was a cryptid I'd never seen before and really, really didn't want to be seeing now.

I stood in shock for a few seconds, but the scientists sprang into action faster than I would have believed. Dr. Lawhorn ran back to the house for weapons and back-up. Dr. Bara took the cortex disruptor that my Dad threw him (why had he been carrying that, anyway?). My Dad had his Battle Glove to fight with, and Doyle had his whole pack full of gadgets, and the two of them, combined with Fisk, immediately started attacking the cryptid. Mom, however, focused on me.

"Zak!" she called. I looked at her and had the feeling she'd said my names a few times before I'd finally paid attention. "I know it's big and I know it's powerful." Great start to a pep-talk, Mom. Way to motivate me. "But you've got to try and control it. Or at least calm it down."

I nodded and tightened the grip on my Claw. I turned back to the cryptid and watched it carefully for the few seconds I could spare, trying to calm down and get back that concentration.

But a look at that cryptid was almost enough to break my nerve. It was glaring at me with a look that made Dr. Beeman's narrowed eyes seem gentle and caring. Maybe using that radar-thing worked both ways. When I picked up on it, it picked up on me. And I didn't like the look of those claws.

My family and the scientists were fighting with all they could to hold it at bay, and I tried not to think about them possibly getting hurt while I was standing there worrying about my own safety. _Just concentrate. _

I took a deep breath (which must've been my fiftieth deep breath that day) and closed my eyes again. I focused on my own energy, and then pushed it out.

And something went wrong. Maybe it was the cryptid's sudden closeness, or maybe it had put up some wall against me. Or maybe it was some other sort of force that I just didn't understand. But when I tried to pick up on that cryptid's energy, a wave of pain hit me. Hard. Actually, I wasn't completely sure whether or not the cryptid hadn't actually slammed me into the ground.

I screamed and I could hear my parents calling my name, trying to figure out what was wrong. But the blinding pain that now surrounded me was too much to bear. I could feel it now: it was all energy. I had tapped too deep into either my energy or that cryptid's energy or both.

And that was the last thing I thought before I blacked out.

* * *

A/N: I kind of feel like I'm talking to a room of people all glaring at me with their arms crossed. Well, here goes nothing. *deep breath*

For those of you just found this and those of you have actually stuck with this for the long amounts of time where I haven't been writing, I give you my most heartfelt thanks and my dearest apologies. There are a humongous amount of excuses I could use here, from writer's block to real life, and they are part of the reason why I haven't been writing. But I think the real reason here is... I stopped caring. Not about writing, because I still do care about writing. But about this story and the Secret Saturdays in general. I lost interest after the second season aired.

I've heard again and again that you are supposed to "write what you know and what you like". Well that last bit doesn't apply anymore, and I can't write a story that I don't like or care about. It isn't fun. It's more of a real chore. I started losing interest back around chapter 4 of this story, but I didn't want to give up. So I pushed out a few more chapters and the results weren't quite amazing. And I don't think I can keep doing that.

So I've got to end this for. I considered trying to recap the story, but at this point, there would be too many things to try and resolve or tie up. I already had part of this chapter written when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to continue with the entire story, I did figure that I might as well just finish this chapter off. Because of that, this chapter is a little rough, and I do apologize for that.

I'm ashamed that I have to do this, but I can't write something I don't care about. So anyone still reading this story, my absolute sincerest apologies. I'm sorry, but this story is now DISCONTINUED.


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